PhoneArena Awards 2013: Best Innovations

The smartphone arena is more than just a playground. It is kind of like a battlefield, if we had to compare it to anything – a battlefield where both minor and major smartphone manufacturers are competing fiercely for the attention of all those increasingly-harder-to-satisfy consumers. Some try to achieve that goal by offering smartphones at an affordable price point. Others go for the top hardware, offering the best processors, displays, or cameras to ever grace a smartphone. Then there are the companies, for which design and build materials are top priority. And more often than not, all of these tactics work to some extent. Sometimes, however, the price, design, and specs of a smartphone aren't enough to genuinely impress a smartphone geek. Sometimes it takes another crucial element each smartphone maker should always take into account – innovation. Innovation is when someone dares to do something differently and in a better way instead of sticking to the status quo. It is when a fresh new idea improves the overall user experience. It is when someone brings forth an alternative concept and proves that it works. And when it comes to smartphones, we witnessed the introduction of more than a few innovative ideas over the past year. Only some of them, however, truly impressed us.

Coprocessors and the unique features they enable

Every contemporary smartphone comes with a system-on-chip of some kind under the hood – a pretty sophisticated single chip that hosts the main application processor along with a graphics processor, a sound processor, a multimedia processor, and a processor that handles image data from the camera, among other modules. This is called integration and it is a good thing – combining all these components on a single piece of silicon saves power and increases performance. However, Motorola and Apple dared to take things to the next level by outfitting their own SoC designs with coprocessors dedicated to tasks that aren't yet integrated into most common SoCs. To be more specific, the X8 Mobile Computing System inside the Motorola Moto X comes with a couple of coprocessors, one of which is responsible for natural language processing while the other handles what Motorola refers to as contextual computing. Apple has its M7 coprocessor ticking alongside the A7 inside the iPhone 5s. Its function is to monitor data from the phone's sensors and to offload the processing of that data from the main CPU. The benefits? Well, you get a number of unique features made possible by the extra modules. The Moto X, for example, listens to voice commands constantly, while the M7 turns the iPhone into a device capable of precisely monitoring the user's physical activity and will even allow applications to recognize when the user is driving, walking, running, or sleeping. Best of all, these features can be on at all times without that having a detrimental effect on battery life. Long story short, a well-implemented coprocessor can teach a smartphone some new, unique, and pretty neat tricks.

Touch ID

Yes, we know that the iPhone 5s isn't the first smartphone to come with a built-in fingerprint scanner. However, it is the first smartphone to have the feature built in and integrated in a way that makes it not frustrating to use. The scanner is accurate, it does not require the user to swipe their finger, it works even when the user's finger is placed at an angle, and it is easy to operate being built into the home button. And if that's not enough, it can be used not only for unlocking the iPhone 5s, but also for authorizing App Store purchases with a fingerprint instead of using a password. Simply put, Apple showed us how a smartphone fingerprint scanner should be executed.

The "self-healing" LG G Flex

It may sound like something out of a sci-fi movie, but it is actually true and it works. The LG G Flex smartphone has a back plate that can recover from light scratches, which are "healed" as if by magic in a matter of minutes. Think placing the phone and your keys in the same pocket – this kind of damage the G Flex should easily recover from. Sure, this kind of tech isn't new, but the G Flex happens to be the first smartphone to take advantage of it. Hopefully, it won't be the last, and maybe one day this "self-healing" technology will be able to make even more serious dents disappear. Check out this video demonstration of the LG G Flex's self-healing abilities in action.

And these, guys, are the innovations that impressed us the most this year. Is there a technology or a product that we should have included in the list? Do not hesitate to let us know down in the comments!

As a person who has made the #switch I applaud to you, I upgraded from a crappy note 2 to the 808 PureView, Nokia lumia 920, and now I'm typing this from my Lumia 1020, by the way you forgot to mention the 808 PureView man

My Note 3 is literally perfect. My battery lasts over a day and a half, screen is the perfect size, S-Pen helps me with my job, and feels super solid in my hand. Anything smaller than my Note feels like a toy. Don't even get me started on an iPhone 4/4S/5/5S.

that's easy, when I first got the note 2 I had been fed the usual gimmicks Samsung loves to advertise on television, I was a gimmick victim without even knowing it. I never even had a chance to properly use nfc with other devices and while I still tried sharing a video the file would still take forever to transfer, something that could have been done through bluetooth on primitive phones. The down road with my note 2 and I began when the phone began to slow, at this I was a little upset, since the quad core exynos was supposed to eliminate lag, but it was all again a gimmick by samsung, and something that upset me was the constant freeze ups where I constantly had to pull the battery out just to get my phone back to work. I previously had a galaxy blaze and didn't have many problems like this. The drop that made the glass spill was when one time I accidentally dropped my phone from my pocket, I'm only 5'6" so it's not like the height from which it fell was higher than 3', with a case on, and once it fell to the ground, the bottom glass chipped off and the whole screen cracked. I had had a galaxy blaze 4G, an htc glacier, sony ericsson xperia x10, even an phone 3gs and none of them had ever cracked, at least not on the first drop (the iphone cracked on the nth drop, only phone to ever crack on me before sammy's plastic, but nothing else). I could not believe this, since the gorilla glass was supposed to be a game changer, it was even more upsetting to see my mother's lumia 810 get thrown to the ground on purpose by my baby sister and see the phone bounce, for her to pick it up again and play farm frenzie like if nothing had happened. Another thing is that this phone that I once diminnished actually took even better pictures than my note 2, while the megapixel quantity was the same it was probably the carl zeiss, I'm not entirely sure, but the pictures were still, and less foggy than mine. This was a turning point for me, since I had never actually considered the built quality on a phone and always went with what I thought was the most important, leaving quality and durability off the table when selecting a phone, and so I began my research. I sold my cracked note 2 on the cheap, refused to do an insurance claim and so I did my research, and since taking pictures was becoming a big part of me I decided to do homework on the nokia 808 pureview and could not be happier. I hate for never having given nokia a chance in the past and always going with that people are trending to. I recently upgraded from the 808 Pureview to the Lumia 1020, and it's not because there's something wrong with the phone, but mainly because I need LTE, I okayed with my mother's Lumia 920 for a month and fell in love with it, but pictures weren't the same, so I was so close of giving up on my 808 Pureview solely for LTE but then I heard nokia was bringing their 808 Pureview camera to the Lumia line, with LTE. I currently rock my Lumia 1020 like a champ and it's a happy ending.

What's wrong with liking WP, and believing it's the better choice over other devices❔ Why do you think that's a bad thing.. I give Android, and iOS credit where credit is due, so I think I have the right to say that I prefer WP, and I think it's the best.. Fanboi❔ That's a lame term that someone who can no longer support their argument uses..

I don´t think that "core apps" being in play store is good at all, because, once an app is on playstore, google google stop suporting it on AOSP so the future updates of those apps goes closed source and developers can´t get their hands on the app source code to improve it and make new implementations.

As this google policy goes on, will be harder for independent developers to create new apps based on the google ones and Android goes more and more into the close source era, which is completely diferent from the first goals of Android(an open mobile system)

It shouldn't affect developers at all, as they will still have the same access to the APIs that they always did.

It does impact availability through AOSP, but the end result is more of a positive for the casual customer, who likely has no knowledge or care of AOSP anyway. Users get updates a lot quicker, without having to worry about manufacturers and carriers getting involved, which should increase overall satisfaction.

Dude, I don't know why you're still here, it's quite obvious that this is an Apple-devoted site; Apple could find a way to recycle horse manure into new casing for the iPhone 5SS and PA would say it's "innovation". Anyway, let the bus driver and other iFanatics live in their fantasy; there are a host of other sites devoted to real Android news and some to Android and iOSame.

You forgot the Fingerprint Sensor on the back of the HTC One Max.

In the end, Apple shares are waaay down and their devoted fan base is dwindling; I actually sold my Xoom to a nice young man who said that he was "tired of what he could NOT do on his iPad." True Story.

The only ones sticking to iDevices are older people who are technically challenged!!

S pen is more inovative and practical than any of above mentioned innovations.... why not boom sound? It is also more practical then any of above, no manufacturer has paid focus on increasing sound yet which is so sad... if HTC has done so, it should be praised... I dont know why site admins/reviewers feel it compulsory to praise something from apple, no matter how useless that innovation is. Do they dont have education that cost and benefit analysis is so difficult for them? Iphone gives least benefit compare to its cost

They would probably call fingerprint scanner as innovation by Apple even though it has existed on laptops earlier..
Clearly, touchwiz with S-pen's features (needless to say how many) are not new even though it has not existed on any device (Android/iOS/WP etc)...
Even though it hurts some fans, but the truth is that Samsung has come a long way and is leading innovator at the moment....
We must all appreciate the efforts of all OEMs in the field of innovation/invention and stop petty OEM vs OEM or OS vs OS battles....
Juz saying

Agreed. These are just things that have already existed and are finally being implemented in smart phones. The Self Healing back is interesting. Touch ID is just another way for someone to break into your precious iphone then buy apps in your name. Coprocessors are cool, but nothing new.

I think if the full customization was available, more than colors and memory size. while the options are lacking from other companies I can still choose 16 or 32 from other companies or basically black and white from most.

Innovation is when someone
dares to do something differently and in
a better way instead of sticking to the
status quo. It is when a fresh new idea
improves the overall user experience. It is
when someone brings forth an alternative
concept and proves that it works.

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